The 20 best music videos of 2018
Many music videos are slick, soulless, product-placement-crammed promos, but some transcend crass commercialism and stand alone as true works of visual art. Here, in ascending order of amazingness, are our picks for the top 20 such artworks of 2018, from the grim sociopolitical commentary of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” and Maxwell’s “The Glass House” to retro clips by Migos, Paramore, the Wombats, Alice Bag, and Ariana Grande that reminded us of simpler, happier times.
20. Beck, “Colors”
Baby Driver director Edgar Wright and Sia choreographer Ryan Heffington lead Beck and gamine co-star Alison Brie through this Technicolor homage to Astaire-era old Hollywood.
19. Betty Who, “Taste”
Australian pop star and LGBTQ ally Betty, a.k.a. Jessica Anne Newham, takes the concept of self-love to a daring new level in this racy clip, equally convincingly playing the dual roles of a female private lap dancer and her male customer. The chemistry between Betty and her rugged alter ego sizzles the screen!
18. The Wombats, “Cheetah Tongue”
Need some fitspo to help you with your New Year’s resolution to get in shape? Then pop this Liverpool trio’s ’80s “workout for the mature lady” into your VCR, and get to Jazzercising. Jane Fonda ain’t got nothin’ on the Wombats.
17. Janelle Monáe, “PYNK”
Speaking of self-love, this Grammy-nominated celebration of female sexuality and empowerment, co-starring Tessa Thompson, is sex-positive, body-positive and absolutely, positively awesome. “PYNK is the color that unites us all, for pink is the color found in the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies of humans everywhere,” Monáe said in a statement. “PYNK is where the future is born.”
16. Jack White, “Corporation”
This crime-scene mini-movie, which chronicles a cop’s attempt to find out who murdered White and was directed by Canadian filmmaker Jodeb, is so compelling, we wouldn’t be surprised if it inspired CBS to premiere a spinoff series titled CSI: Boarding House Reach next fall.
15. Fall Out Boy, “Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)”
If “The Fall Out Boys” had their own shopping network, it’d sort of look this. And we’d probably watch it 24/7. Just $736.99 for your very own life-size Patrick Stump? $1999.99 for Pete Wentz’s bass sword? $149.99 for Stump’s “Dance Dance” jacket? Unfortunately, we called the 1-833 number, and everything is sold out — but this meme/in-joke/Easter egg-filled video is priceless.
14. Paramore, “Rose-Colored Boy”
If Wake Up! Roseville were a real morning talk show, we’d start every day watching Hayley Williams and her perfect ’80s poodle perm.
13. Savannah Pope, “Creature”
This dazzling and dizzying clip by Los Angeles glam goddess Pope has EVERYTHING (Stefon from SNL voice): Icarus wings, creepy clown kids, harlequin face paint, gold body paint, powdered wigs, and Ann Wilson-level rock vocals. Independent artist Pope spent a full year animating this clip, frame by frame, and it was worth it.
12. John Mayer, “New Light”
“I needed to make a video for ‘New Light’ but nobody could agree on a budget. (MUSIC INDUSTRY amirite?) So I went to a place downtown and made this with a company that usually does birthday and Bar Mitzvah videos,” Mayer explained on Twitter. The result was this internet-winning, bad-green-screen instant classic.
11. Alice Bag, “77”
While we all wait for the sequel to 9 to 5, the 1980 feminist comedy classic starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, this brilliant spoof by the former frontwoman of first-wave L.A. punk pioneers the Bags will do nicely. Bag, Garbage’s Shirley Manson, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, and Allison Wolfe (co-founder of ’90s Riot Grrrl band Bratmobile) don their best floppy bow ties and Barb-from-Stranger Things spectacles as they protest the gender wage gap in the most punk-rock way possible.
10. Death Valley Girls, “Disaster (Is What We’re After)”
Enjoy four glorious minutes and 10 seconds of uninterrupted, Andy Warhol-inspired footage of Iggy Pop eating a hamburger. Yep, that’s it. But that’s all you need. Come to think of it, maybe this video should be our No. 1 pick…
9. Drake, “God’s Plan”
This is definitely the feel-good video of the year. Drake took his nearly million-dollar video budget and gave it all back to people in need in Miami — surprising beneficiaries with wads of cash as a documentary-style camera crew trailed him. Drake described the video on social media as “the most important thing I have ever done in my career.”
8. Maxwell, “The Glass House (We Never Saw It Coming)”
This chilling short film is definitely not the feel-good video of the year. But it is required 2018 viewing. It depicts a wealthy but deeply unhappy family coming to terms with how they have taken each other for granted in their relentless pursuit of material wealth. “We should have loved more. We should have loved harder. I guess none of that matters now. It’s too late,” laments the wife, before she and Maxwell gaze helplessly out the window of their glass mansion at a mushroom cloud forming on the horizon. Heavy stuff.
7. Ariana Grande, “thank u, next”
Ariana nearly broke the internet with this witty homage to early-2000s teen flicks Mean Girls, Bring It On and Legally Blonde, filled with memeable scenes and cameos by Troye Sivan, Mean Girls actors Jonathan Bennett and Stefanie Drummond, and Grande’s former Victorious co-stars Elizabeth Gillies, Daniella Monet, and Matt Bennett. This video is so fetch.
6. Bruno Mars feat. Cardi B, “Finesse”
Bruno and his fly-girl sidekick bring ’90s-retro finesse back to the TV screen in this spot-on perfect In Living Color homage. Homey, you should play this — over and over.
5. Justin Timberlake, “Filthy”
JT’s Man of the Woods album was one of the biggest flop albums of 2018. But this masterpiece, lensed by one of the greatest music video directors of all time, Mark Romanek, and starring a very future-sexy AI robot and Timberlake as a black-turtlenecked, Steve Jobs-like tech genius, is a keeper. And it’s way more interesting than anything from Justin’s uninspired Super Bowl LII halftime show earlier this year.
4. The 1975, “Sincerity Is Scary”
This charming mini-movie musical, reminiscent of Janet Jackson’s one-shot “When I Think of You” video, has goofy frontman Matt Healy busting out his best Gene Kelly moves on an old-school Hollywood set alongside a choir, a marching band and even mimes. Healy accurately described the visual as “good bowl of soup levels wholesome,” making it a departure from darker 1975 videos like “Somebody Else” and “Chocolate,” but it’s so good, we’re now eagerly waiting for the 1975 jukebox musical to hit Broadway.
3. Migos feat. Drake, “Walk It Talk It”
If there were ever a convincing argument for a Soul Train reboot, it would be this retro masterpiece. No dynamite detail is overlooked, from the grainy film stock and earth-toned ’70s set to the group’s foot-high Afro wigs and groovy leisure suits and funky line dancers on roller skates.
2. The Carters, “Apes**t”
Most artists couldn’t shut down Paris’s Louvre museum for a video shoot, but music’s most powerful power couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, did just that for this extravagant six-minute clip, which is a work of art in and of itself. Professor James Smalls from the University of Maryland described it as “an orchestrated contrast of energetically writhing and animated black physiques set against frozen white forms of the past.” And as art historian Michael Rose explained, the video “places the uniquely American art form of rap on the same level with European masterpieces, and it corrects the lack of diversity that is often taken for granted in cultural institutions, not only in the Old World, but in the New as well.” “Apes**t” was so influential that the Louvre just launched a special tour of the 27 artworks featured in the video.
1. Childish Gambino, “This is America”
The explosive, single-take clip that launched a thousand think pieces in a politically turbulent time still shocks and awes months after its release. Its “central message is about guns and violence in America and the fact that we deal with them and consume them as part of entertainment on one hand, and on the other hand, is a part of our national conversation,” Guthrie Ramsey, a professor of music history at the University of Pennsylvania, told Time magazine. “You’re not supposed to feel as if this is the standard-fare opulence of the music industry. It’s about a counter-narrative and it really leaves you with chills.”
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